SIT charge sheet in Prajwal Revanna case gives harrowing details

Former JD(S) MP Prajwal Revanna charged with rape and his father, MLA HD Revanna, with sexual harassment. The 2,144-page charge sheet details multiple offenses.

A special investigation team has submitted a charge sheet against former Janata Dal (Secular) MP Prajwal Revanna for rape and his father and MLA, HD Revanna, for sexual harassment, officials said on Saturday.

Suspended JD(S) MP Prajwal Revanna (PTI)

The 2,144-page-long charge sheet, submitted late on Friday, comprises statements from 137 witnesses, and provides harrowing details of the crimes of the two, including the sexual abuse, rape and intimidation of a woman employed in the Revanna household, a police officer said requesting anonymity. The charge sheet also includes spot inspection, biological, physical, scientific, mobile, digital and technical evidence to support the allegations against the two.

The investigation into the two leaders also revealed that Prajwal had a history of sexually harassing multiple women, recording the assaults, and using the footage to blackmail them, the officer said.

The SIT is probing the allegations of mass sexual abuse against Prajwal, who was suspended from the Janata Dal (Secular) after a huge cache of explicit videos allegedly showing him sexually abusing several women became public hours following polling for the Hassan Lok Sabha seat on April 26.

Following this, chairperson of Karnataka State Commission for Women Nagalakshmi Chowdhary had sought an inquiry and wrote to the Congress government, which then ordered an investigation.

Karnataka government officials earlier said that the pen drive circulated in Hassan had 2,976 videos, some of a few seconds, and some that last a few minutes. Preliminary investigations suggested that most were shot from a mobile phone at Revanna’s residences in Bengaluru and Hassan after 2019.

Prajwal had contested the recent Lok Sabha election as an NDA candidate from Hassan and lost.

According to the charge sheet, HD Revanna sexually harassed the house help multiple times between 2019 and 2022. The woman was initially hired as a help in the kitchen at a hostel for backward class girls in Holenarasipur in Hassan district on the recommendation of Revanna’s wife, Bhavani. Later, she was engaged in the Revanna household.

The charge sheet gives details of how the former MLA harassed her at his family home, the police officer cited above said.

In the charge sheet, Prajwal is accused of repeating assaulting the same woman. It goes on to detail one specific incident from 2020, where he raped her and recorded the assault on his mobile phone, at HIS? House in Basavanagudi, Bangalore.

The charge sheet further reveals that Prajwal used these recordings to blackmail the woman.

In the recordings, the woman can be heard pleading with the former MP in a bid to dissuade him. He, however, goes on to threaten her, saying, “If you reveal this, I’ll send your husband to jail. I’ll do the same to your daughter. I know how to close any case, no matter what. I’m an MP, and nobody can do anything to me.” He also threatened to kill her, the charge sheet said.

During its probe, the SIT also discovered that Prajwal sexually assaulted several other women, filmed the assaults, and used the videos to blackmail the women.

It also found that once the videos became public, Prajwal attempted to flee abroad and destroy the evidence, including mobile phones containing incriminating footage.

While the charge sheet only pertains one case, the SIT is yet to submit charge sheets in other cases, including additional rape charges and the Hassan pen drive case. These are likely to submitted in the next few days.

The charge sheet also highlights the systemic abuse of power and exploitation of vulnerable women.

While the MLA Revanna, who is son of former Prime Minister and JD(S) supremo H D Deve Gowda, has been charged with section 354 and 354 (A) of the IPC, his 33-year-old son Prajwal has been booked under sections 376, 376 (2)(K), 354, 354(A) and 354(B) of the IPC.